Sandy Harper-Jaques, RN, MN, RMFT

Resonance Counselling & Consulting 
Calgary, Alberta, Canada 

Phone: 403-999-6839
Email: sandy@resonancecounsellingandconsulting.com or sharperjaques@gmail.com

I operate Resonance Counselling & Consulting.  We are a small organization focused on improving one’s sense of well-being and on improving relationships in families and in communities.  I offer brief therapy to individuals and couples.  I specialize in promoting healing when people are making sense of a medical or psychiatric diagnosis and I also help alleviate the symptoms of depression and anxiety. Conversations with my clients always invite me to reflect on people’s experience and their challenges; and I am often changed by these conversations. 

I also am very passionate about providing accessible mental health services to people. One area that I have explored and practiced in is single session, walk-in therapy program. I provide training and supervision in this area.  To maintain my perspective on this practice, I work, on a casual basis, at the Mental Health Walk-in service located in the South Calgary Health Centre.  This service is part of a large publicly funded health care organization in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. 

I am also an approved clinical supervisor of marriage and family therapy.  During supervision meetings, I focus on the clinical dilemmas experienced by the therapist and together we attempt to co-evolve a new understanding the clinical concern. As a supervisor, I endeavor to foster an environment where different theoretical ideologies and perspectives can be expressed, discussed and debated. I believe that recognition and acceptance of both difference and similarities among the members of the clinical team will open space for those clinicians to listen to and acknowledge various points of view of their clients. We live in a time of uncertainty and anxiety – I try to foster a clinical space where therapists and clients can feel safe.

While my practice license is nursing, my clinical home has always been marriage and family therapy. For a long time, I have believed that people seek the input of ‘us therapist types’ when they run out of solutions. The actions they normally take to solve problems are no longer working and they need new ideas. During a conversation with a client about new solutions, I am often intrigued by the ways in which language influences the person’s perceptions of self and perceptions of other people. I strive, in my conversations with clients, to engage in language that addresses the presenting concern and to use language to draw forth competencies and abilities. I also engage clients through language to foster discovery of solutions that reduce suffering and to foster a sense of hope. I also listen for the client’s description of their relationships with interaction patterns and the important role of a system or systems in a person’s life.

My degrees are from the University of Calgary; I am a clinical fellow and approved supervisor with AAMFT. I have publications in nursing and therapy journals in the areas of family nursing, supervision and single session therapy. My research interests are in the area of client reports of therapy outcomes.

In my personal life I am married and we have two adult daughters who are off having adventures in their own lives. I enjoy cycling, snowshoeing, quilting and spending time with interesting people.